Bean Hill Flyers Newsletter, January/February 2013

Bean Hill Flyers Pages

I suppose the correct greeting should be Happy New Year since that's the time that most of you will be reading this. As I am writing this it is late November. Wrapping the year up means renewing those memberships. AMA, PAMPA, and of course your Bean Hill Club Membership. That leads me to make some comment on the importance of membership to modeling organizations. Sean Elliot, one of our members, works for the EAA as an advocate for general aviation to the government. His recent article in Sport Aviation magazine cites a new acronym, SUAS or Small Unmanned Aircraft System. These are commercially used by law enforcement, news media, realtors etc. for unmanned aerial photography and surveillance. In other words - a drone. This of course means that the FAA is in the process of creating rules to govern the use of these RC drones in our airspace. These new rules have the potential to impact not only the commercial drones but also RC, Free Flight and Control Line models as well. It is important to keep informed as the rules come to light so we can react if necessary. The AMA's 147,000 members and nearly 2,000 chartered clubs give strength to its voice. You are an important part of that.

On a lighter but colder note, don't forget to check in with Joe Maxwell on all weather flying times this winter. Bring out that engine that tends to run too hot in the summer months. You can run it all day long this time of year. Seriously, Flying in the winter is a lot of fun, no mosquitoes, and no sunburn!

Take note in this issue that the annual winter dinner meeting is coming soon and plan to be there. Show and tell is welcome so bring your latest artwork. It's a great time every year. See you there!

Feb. 24 Annual Club dinner and meeting at Hoss' Restaurant, Erie, PA. Social time starting at 1:00 p.m. If you need more information contact Dalton Hammett at 814-882-1927.

*** Build sessions are held at Maxwell's Hobby Shop from about 4 pm until 6 pm. Bring your projects in

if you would like some help or just stop in to visit and possibly help someone else. If you would like

January starts off a new season for the all season flyers. I believe three or four of our members have completed the 2012 season. We will know for sure at the February dinner meeting.

If you would like to participate in 2013 please let Joe Maxwell know and I have included one of the. record sheets that you can use to keep track of your flights. You need to have one recorded flight each month, January thru December.

See hard copy from newsletter mailing or contact Treasurer George H. Towns, Treasurer, for details.

Well the snow is flying, the leftover Thanksgiving turkey is hopefully finally gone, deer gun season is here and gone, the Christmas tree is dried out, and the Brownies have finally proven their vast superiority over the Steelers. Its winter - and God knows we have a long one in Erie. If you are reading this, we made it past the end of the world on the 21st of December. I have a pretty nice profile stunter on my board right now, so I sure am glad those Mayans got it wrong. Everybody makes mistakes.

So winter is very much the time we build. Whether you are gluing together a new ARF or starting with a huge blank piece of paper and a stack of creamy white contest balsa, there are many aspects of building that need your attention. If building from a set of plans, don't just automatically follow the plan. I have found that on several planes, there are very easy ways to improve the strength of what I would otherwise consider a too-weak bellcrank mounting system, plywood doubler shape or tail attachment. Some specifics would be instead of using one piece of plywood for the bellcrank that is glued to one spar, sandwich the bellcrank between two pieces of plywood so that the bolt passes through both pieces of ply. This is twice as strong as the plan while adding only maybe a few grams.

What I'm getting at is that safety in building translates to safety on the field. Taking a second to think about what you are doing and how you can do it better will payoff in the long run. Always be mindful of what you are doing. For example, I was sweating an elbow onto a short nipple of copper pipe in my bathroom. I was sitting on the tub and had the torch on the ground. I was holding the work in one hand and the solder in the other. I dropped the solder and bent over to pick it up. Well, lets just say I was not mindful of where the torch was and the smell of burning hair lingered for hours. I also want to touch on my nemesis - wire brushes. I'm not sure if anyone has figured out how to use these properly, but every time I try to mess with them I draw blood. Be careful. I recently had one in a drill and had a wire pop out and hit me in the face. Not good. Stay safe and have a good building season.

P.S. If anyone has any safety issues, concerns, questions or mishaps please email me. I can always use new material for the newsletter.

1. Here is a picture furnished by a member of the Cleveland group with a note it was taken back in the 1900's.

2. George Towns' Demon flying wing in the air at the Champion field. It's.40 powered and I can't see George

3. Dalton Hammett (L) and Clint McBeth started flying together and started Albion's first control line club back

Since we have a number of new members Joe Daniels asked me to put out a little information on the Winter Building Challenge for all.

This is a fun event to complete and have a plane flying over the winter months. The plane must be built between "Late in the year 2012 and our first scheduled club event after Brodak's in 2013. Each year it is a different plane and the event is open to club members only.

Our panel of judges changes depending on who's available and not building a plane that year. The completed planes are reviewed for building and finish then the models have to complete a minimum of ten laps flying - no special stunts are required and the flight is only considered if it's to break a tie in the building.

This season's project is anyone of the old CG Goodyear profiles. These are the planes that are normally used in Foxberg Racing. You can use one of the original kits, one of the Brodak kits (Maxwell Hobby has them) or build from plans which the club has available also. There are awards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and if you have any other questions please feel free to contact me about them.

We would like to get an idea, as usual, of how many entrants we might see so if you would, please let me know if you are planning on completing a plane. Definitely consider it as it has been a lot of fun in the past plus it gives you another plane to beat around with or possibly even consider Foxberg Racing. Some of the planes built in past events have turned out to be good flyers and Chris Keller's Super Firecat even won him a special award at Brodak's last year....

Bean Hill Flyers Newsletter - January/February 2013Erie, Pennsylvania

Bean Hill Flyers Newsletter - January/February 2013
Erie, Pennsylvania